Research for Maritime Strategy

The Navy, like any military organization, exists to employ force in the service of national policy--in short, to wage war. Peacetime operations have influence precisely because they carry with them a constant reminder of the ability of the Navy and the nation to use force to compel or protect. The Navy must not neglect its warfighting heritage. But the demands of the post-Cold War world require greater attention to the use of the Navy to influence other nations in conditions short of war or crisis. As we enter the twenty-first century, the Navy must accept new responsibilities to keep our friends friendly, to keep our adversaries deterred and quiescent, to draw uncommitted states closer to the United States, and to either restore stability to unstable regimes or mitigate the consequences of instability. Despite its reputation as a conservative organization, one of the great strengths of the Navy is its ability to adapt. It adapted to the dominance of the carrier in 1942. It adapted to the needs of inshore warfare in Vietnam. It adapted to the challenge of a seagoing Soviet superpower in the final decades of the Cold War. Now it must adapt to the need to use the tools of war to gain peacetime influence in an uncertain age.